UnsolvedPatricia Anne Jauron

On Tuesday morning, May 26, 1998, sometime between 9 and 9:45 a.m., Patricia Anne “Pat” Jauron, 45, was viciously stabbed several times in the rural Sioux City home she and her husband, Eugene “Gene” Jauron, had vacated six months earlier.

The couple had just moved out of one home at 1516 Old Highway 141 and into another across the road at 1541 Old Highway 141, and had been selling off the last few items from the former home.

According to Gene Jauron – who spent more than 40 years as a meter reader for MidAmerican Energy – the couple had held an earlier yard sale and a person who’d attended the yard sale allegedly called several times afterward inquiring about purchasing the waterbed and setting up a time to meet.

Patricia, who’d just retired from the Sergeant Bluff Middle School, went across the road at the scheduled appointment time, and, according to her husband, was “supposed to be gone only for a few moments.”

Gene talked about his late wife and said he believed he’d met her killer face to face. From his home across the highway, Gene said he saw a red car, and believed the car belonged to the man who murdered his wife. When Patricia didn’t return home, Gene said he went to check on her at the other house. He said he found the waterbed in the basement covered in blood. “He’d hit her in the head, knocked her down and tied her up,” Gene said. “She still had the twine on her one arm, but she got loose. He started stabbing. She got out the basement door and she got out into the yard and he must have stabbed her all the way out.”

Gene said he’d found his wife’s body over an embankment and that all he could do was hold her. The stabbing had been so forceful, he said, that “the knife’s blade had broken off in her chest.” Gene called 911 at approximately 10:52 a.m. to request assistance.

Gene said he felt there were still many clues to be followed up on, and believed they met the killer at the garage sale before the murder. The man, he said, paid for a dresser that day but never came back for it. He said the same man told him he worked at an area packing plant and that phone calls made before the murder were traced to a pay phone near a local convenience store.

As for the red car in the driveway, Gene said there were clues he’d like to see tackled in a cold case crime unit. He also believed someone in Siouxland knew what happened. “Somebody around here knows,” Gene said. “He would have had to have been the most horrible bloody mess you ever seen in your life. All I can do is hope they get him.” Gene died without ever seeing his wife’s murder case solved. He passed away on January 12, 2012.

If you have any information about Patricia’s unsolved murder, please contact the Woodbury County Sheriff’s Office at 712.279.6010.